Characterizing Rwandan refugee settlements in his country, Tarsis Kabwegyere, the Ugandan Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Refugees said: “This is not a holiday camp.” The snide remark comes after the government of Uganda enacted a ban on farming for refugees, in an attempt to incite the remaining 16,000 - mostly Hutu - Rwandan refugees to voluntary repatriate to their country.

(Kabul, Afghanistan) UN Dispatch has acquired details about the demographic composition of Afghanistan’s upcoming 'peace jirga,' the conference at which a strategy for ending the war and reconciling insurgent groups with the Afghan Government will be crafted.

According to a source close to the process, only 20 of approximately 1000 seats at the jirga will be reserved for women, and 30 for representatives from academia and civil society. This was information first divulged on the Twitter feed of Tom Shaw.

People in the developed world think of diarrhea as a mild nuisance. But for most of the world it can be a death sentence. Sanitation related diseases -- mainly diarrhea -- kills over 4,000 children around the world each day, meaning it kills more children than malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB...combined.

Today is World Water Day, so this is a good opportunity to talk about how it is that people die everyday for lack of a clean glass of water. Here is a useful primer from GOOD.

The U.S. Congress passed a historic health care bill last night, hopefully ending the plight of the uninsured in the United States. That number now includes over 30 million people but, over the next couple of years, should shrink to zero. What about health care everywhere else?

The news is both bad and good, as presented in this comprehensive 2008 World Health Organization report (PDF).